chicken run

The chickens are organized (well two of them at least). I believe they are trying to dig their way out.

mealworm shortage

Apparently this is the summer of shortages as we now see it hit pet stores. The chickens' favorite treat is mealworms which I normally buy at the local pet store but I saw on the various forums that there was a shortage so I went to Petco to see and sure enough, the fridge was cleaned out. All the online sites also reported shortages for the next month. Sadly, I had just fed them the last of the worms last week. But I guess it's really the pet lizards out there who are suffering since apparently they consume worms as their main food source. Luckily, this week I finally realized the best way to get them back into their coop when I go to work was to wave their yellow food dish around - they remember it as a food source from when they were young and come running. And the treat I have settled on giving them when they come in is just mash - a combination of their normal chicken feed and water. For some reason, they like the mushy food.

Meanwhile, I've placed an order for dried mealworms. We'll see if they like it at all.

chicks on a bench

When I let them out to free range, they like hanging out on this bench in my backyard. Good thing no one uses this bench or else they may get a poopy surprise.

chicken training

Clearly I should have started doing some training early on. Nowadays, I'm just happy if I can herd them back to their coop.

Coop complete

Here is the final picture of the coop. We had some folks over this last weekend to see the chickens and coop. Everyone was quite amazed with C's work.

As we were taking pictures, the chicks came in their house to say hello



And then proceeded to roost in front of us

webcam control

For those who use the chicken webcam and care, I created some preset camera positions so now you can move the camera around sort of and aren't just stuck at whatever camera view I left it at.

Chicks at 2 months

Here is the latest picture of 2 of the chicks. They are starting to look like proper chickens now. The coop is mostly done as well but will take a picture of it next week.